About The Cover

ONLINE COVER Beating Back the Bloodsuckers. The female mosquito vector of malaria (pictured) takes a blood meal at night, a key step in the parasite's life cycle that can be prevented using insecticide-treated bednets. Unfortunately, insecticide resistance among mosquito malaria vectors in Africa is rapidly increasing. A DNA marker identified in the gene encoding cytochrome P450, an enzyme that breaks down the insecticides used for treating bednets, enabled Weedall et al. to track the emergence of insecticide resistance in mosquitoes in Africa. A field hut study in Cameroon confirmed that mosquitoes carrying this resistance marker were better able to survive taking a blood meal from human volunteers sleeping under insecticide-treated bednets. [CREDIT: ALEX WILD]